Abortion

In North Carolina, John McCain blasted federal judges who "pronounce and rule on matters that were never intended to be heard in courts." He touched on eminent domain but for the most part the speech was pretty vague. Of course, conservative Christians are listening for the subtext, which came through loud and clear. While the words "abortion," "Roe," 'versus" and "Wade" never crossed McCain's lips, that's exactly what he was talking about. McCain is reaching out to the religious right, a group that regards him with suspicion but which is likely key to his election in November. And with a speech like this one, outlining what kinds of judges he will appoint as president, he's speaking their language:

"My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power," McCain said Tuesday in a speech at Wake Forest University.

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, promised to appoint judges who, in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, he says would interpret the law strictly to curb the scope of their rulings.

Translation: my nominees will work to limit Roe v. Wade. For the most part, McCain has a record on abortion that is pleasing to Christian conservatives. It's one of the few issues where that's the case so it'll be interesting to see how often we hear him use the loaded term "activist judges" going forward.

WaPo leads its political section today with news that Sen. Barack Obama has picked up key Democratic, pro-life endorsements. Sen. Robert Casey (Pa.) and former congressman Timothy Roemer (Ind.), influential pro-life anomalies in the Democratic party, have surprisingly thrown in their lot with a candidate who has gone so far as to vote against the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act," a law requiring physicians to provide medical care to infants born alive during an attempted abortion.

While contending against Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's pro-life record has not been of much significance. However, in the general election, Sen. John McCain may energize and win over reticent pro-lifers - not as a result of McCain's stellar pro-life legacy, but out of a shocked repulsion at Obama's extremism.

Just as the horror of partial-birth abortion has previously energized the pro-life movement, Obama's infanticidal support of "Post-Birth Abortion" may arise as a rallying cry in the looming general election. It stretches credibility when a person who believes that abortion extends beyond birth complains that "the [abortion] debate got so polarized that both sides tended to exaggerate the other side's positions." How does one possibly exaggerate a position such as Obama's?

As my family will attest, I spend way too much time reading the comments on these pages, and I realize that this can distort one's view of the average voter. Naturally, most of the comments come from a small number of readers, many of them forceful advocates for one candidate. Still, there are, anecdotally, a lot of people who claim to be Hillary Clinton supporters who say that if Barack Obama is the nominee, they will vote for John McCain.

Now, one of three things is true: 1. They're telling the truth 2. They're bluffing to scare people off the fence onto Hillary's side 3. They are Republican provocateurs trying to help McCain. It would be really helpful to know which is the case, and I believe I have devised an ingenious method, a McCrucible, if you will. Obviously, we can't just throw holy water on them, this is the internet.

McCain appeals to a broad swath of voters, for reasons I won't get into here, but a true Hillary Clinton supporter couldn't possibly vote for McCain, given what I'm about to tell you.

Where is the line between humanitarian and inhuman? A surgeon in California is on trial for administering a deadly drug to a fatally ill handicapped man in order to get him to die more quickly so that they could harvest his organs while they were still useful. His lawyer thinks he did nothing wrong:

The doctor's lawyer, M. Gerald Schwartzbach, said that Roozrokh, 34, who moved to Wisconsin from Iran when he was a toddler and excelled as a collegiate swimmer, did "nothing that adversely affected the quality or length" of Navarro's life.

The man is not innocent. He admits having administered a deadly drug with intent to kill, in clear violation of the Hippocratic oath. Thus, the Kevorkian logic takes its next fully predictable turn of the screw. Handicapped advocates had fought voluntary suicide laws because the line between right to die and duty to die would never hold. As soon as it is OK to take yourself out when you find yourself a pain in the butt, the next step is that someone else will feel entitled to reach the same conclusion.

Buoyed by the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal partial-birth abortion ban, thousands of protesters gathered on the National Mall in Washington yesterday to mark the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. President Bush addressed the marchers, as he has done every year of his presidency. The president did not appear at the protest, but spoke to the protesters by telephone after hosting a group of pro-life leaders in the East Room of the White House.

The president, considered by many to be the most pro-life president in memory, cited recent statistics showing that the number of abortions in the United States is declining and cheered the partial-birth abortion ban. But he told the marchers that there is a long way to go, saying that the same data that showed a decline in abortions also shows that one in five pregnancies in the U.S. still ends in one. "America is better than this," he said.

"Supreme Court Settles Abortion Issue."

- The New York Times, January 23, 1973

It didn't quite turn out as the Times predicted. Today marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that "settled" the abortion debate by sweeping aside the laws of all 50 states and imposing a federal abortion mandate to protect women's rights on the nation.

In contrast with the Times' hopeful headline, hundreds of thousands will arrive in Washington, D.C. today for the annual "March for Life," and every presidential candidate will undoubtedly speak to the occassion. Democrats will laud the progress of women's reproductive rights and privacy rights in general, while Republicans will mourn 40 million lost babies and reproach a "run-away" judiciary. Each candidate will attempt to fully exploit the opportunity to rally the base and churn up support.

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee would not pass a bill authorizing immediate disaster relief to tornado victims because it termed twisters as "an Act of God." Well, now there seems to be another legal document that Huck has a few problems with vis-a-vis whether or not it reads approvingly to the big man upstairs. It's the U.S. Constitution, which, to Huckabee's eyes, could use a few God-approved flourishes.

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

Thank goodness we have Huck to give us God's opinion! Specifically, preacher Mike would like the following changes made in the name of Jesus: An amendment banning all forms of abortion (no exceptions for rape and incest), and an amendment banning gay marriage. That's just for starters, of course.

As I was working on another story yesterday, I stumbled across a Clinton press briefing. More on that later. The conference call was being run by senior Clinton adviser Ann Lewis, and was intended to highlight Hillary's record on choice, and to contrast it with Barack Obama's "present" votes. It was clear to me that I wasn't going to get a comment for the story I was working on, so I was about to bail.

I didn't even take notes on most of it, but apparently, Max Fullmer over at Huffington Post did. Key quote for me:

Obama, said senior Clinton adviser Ann Lewis, had voted "present" 129 times on a variety of bills, including those that she said would have protected the privacy of victims of sexual abuse, and strengthened state adoption laws.

"Presidents don't get to vote present," said senior Clinton adviser Ann Lewis.

After the jump, I'll give you way TMI about the conference call, and I'll explain how the Clinton campaign convinced me to endorse Mrs. Emma Peel for President.

The most telling conservative critique of Roe v. Wade has always been that it short-circuited the dialog of democracy by raising to an unchallengeable constitutional level something that clearly was neither banned nor permitted under the Constitution. The result of this has been permanent trench warfare between two sides that were "constitutionally" prohibited from compromising in the center.

But the Constitution, properly understood, is a framework for democratic dialog, not a set of substantive outcomes. Mike Huckabee didn't get the memo. Rather than removing the constitutional atrocity and allowing the people to evolve their own approaches to a difficult issue, he'd just turn the cannon around and reload.

The iconic Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) passed away earlier today. The conservative crusader served 32 years in the House of Representatives, where he enjoyed the anachronistic quality of being deeply respected by members of both parties for his honest character and moral conviction.

"The law exists," proclaimed Hyde, "to protect the weak from the strong." President Bush's called the congressman, "a gallant champion of the weak and forgotten, and a fearless defender of life in all its seasons." The National Right to Life Committee estimates that the Hyde Amendment - Rep. Hyde's signature pro-life legislation which prevented government funding and promotion of abortion - has saved the lives of over one million Americans.